Thursday, 7 August 2014

The authentic Cinderella

The arrival of the August Burda magazine in my letter box the other day quickly made me realise that not only had July slipped by in blur of sickness, lethargy and general busyness, but I hadn't made a project from either the June or July issues of Burda! Even worse is that I have actually traced out the patterns from each, but haven't got as far as actually making them - but the good thing with self imposed challenges that it matters to no one else if I'm a little late.

My sewing room is now pretty much completely deconstructed and all that remains in there is my sewing desk with my machines and a box of fabrics and notions I think I'll need frequently. The rest of my sewing stuff is stored at my parents house - an hour and a half away so I need to get organised with my projects now! My sewing room is now a shared sewing space and children's playroom - a recipe for disaster I'm sure. But to sell our house we had to turn the kid's playroom back into a fourth bedroom so it's for a good reason even if it is annoying to have my sewing supplies so spread about the place.

Of course there has been sewing though - birthday party dresses for my social butterfly, as well as a dress up costume for Anna's school Education Week book character parade. I have to admit to being pretty excited about sewing a costume for the dress up parade, because I have fond memories of my parents getting very creative with costumes for me as a child. I tried to talk her into a cool or quirky character, but unfortunately for the kindergarten set it seems that Disney characters rule the day.

Anna demanded a Cinderella dress - not just any Cinderella dress though, it had to be a faithful reproduction of her Golden Book version. The ones available for purchase just weren't good enough for Anna's liking because they weren't authentic enough! So instead I spent just as much money on ice blue and white satin to make this:

Happily though Anna really loves it and it is better quality than the costumes available in the stores - those were so plasticky they looked like they would spontaneously combust!

My version met with approval because the skirt is full length and very full - look at it twirl:

I got another tick for making the waistband at the centre front come down in a point and not straight across, which was very important:

Although I did get a little reprimand for adding that trim to the neckline and princess seams because it wasn't on the picture in her book.

And the pouffy hip thingies are made of white satin to match the sleeves, and not of tulle like the ones we saw in the shop:

I wasn't sure how to make those hip things, so in the end I just made them a rectangle the full width of the fabric with rounded edges, and then just folded it and pleated it to fit the waist (leaving a little gap in the front of course!). Seems to work I think.

Of course I had to make the black choker necklace and headband to complete the outfit:

All in all I think someone really enjoyed their day as a princess!

Very handily I managed to find a girls dress sewing pattern in my stash that was perfectly designed for this style, although it wasn't a costume pattern. Sewing was rather fiddly dealing with all that slippery fabric and trying to get my hands in small spaces like the sleeve head and hem. Annoyingly the fabric puckered a little bit even though I used a sharps needle, which is most obvious at the neckline, but it's only a dress up costume so I can live with it.

Now to get on with some sewing for me! I've got a few fabrics and patterns out so it's time to get productive.